For one reason or another, I had previously been locked into Verizon, and Sprint before that. I had no gripes with either of these carriers per se, coverage was great, speeds were great, pricing was manageable, but there was a persistent feeling of constriction. Even if I paid outright for my phone to avoid a contract, it's not as if I could take my phone to another carrier. After all, even if I had an unlocked world phone from Sprint or Verizon, any ability to achieve speeds beyond EDGE were artificially disabled to further confine users to one network. Thus began my need to ditch proprietary CDMA technologies and run into the open arms of open GSM standard!
...right.
Oh how woefully broken even the GSM carriers are in the states. Until T-Mobile's 1900MHz refarming efforts come to fruition, what might be the solution to the AT&T/T-Mobile interoperability conundrum? Well of course, pentaband phones!
PHONES
I ask, how many high-end, cutting-edge pentaband phones can you name (on any platform)? If you could count up to a whole hands-worth, it would be a miracle. Why might this be? Would it have anything to do with certain GSM carriers in the US lusting after the exclusivity enjoyed by their CDMA counterparts? Granted, I realize there are certain hardware limitations, with chipsets in particular, but the overwhelming lack of premium pentaband phones must certainly be attributed to more than just this.
So then, where does this leave me? After a lot of looking around, I have landed on the following lineup of devices:
-Nokia Lumia 710 (unlocked, T-Mobile)
-Samsung Galaxy Nexus (GSM)
-New iPad (unlocked, Verizon)
The Lumia 710 is not actually pentaband, but it does have all necessary UMTS bands for all North American GSM carriers (850/1700/1900/2100). As for tablets, given the complete absence of any pentaband device worth buying, I settled on the model with an unlocked SIM tray capable of delivering LTE on Verizon, 3G HSPA+ on AT&T, or EDGE on T-Mobile.
SIM
The astute reader might also notice that of the above devices, 2 take a miniSIM while 3 take a microSIM. SIMs are yet another standard left fragmented, this time by manufacturers. There are realistically only a couple options here: two lines and thus two SIMs or a SIM adapter. In my experience, cheap SIM adapters are a guaranteed way to ruin your phone's SIM reader (RIP my Samsung Focus). I finally found one that neatly grips the microSIM (none of that sticker-based nonsense) here - they're a bit pricey but well worth it! The next best solution I've found is to use the outer portion from a cut miniSIM which is essentially custom made to house the microSIM.
PLANS
Okay, phone problem solved. SIM problem solved. Now for carrier and plan selection. The only option with which you are truly unbeholden to a carrier is prepaid monthly service, but selection here is limited. I needed the plan to be no more than $60/month, with plenty of data, and since I use Google Voice, messaging is just an added bonus. Here's a great xda thread that outlines a bunch of the prepaid GSM options in the US.
For someone like me, AT&T's data pricing is absolutely unreasonable and on top of that, speeds are throttled to 3G HSPA speeds of < 2 Mbps down. H20 seems appealing at first, until you notice that only the first 500MB of your 2GB allotment are at "4G" HSPA+ speeds, with the remainder throttled down to 3G HSPA.
Simple Mobile (a T-Mobile MVNO) is a great choice at the $40 tier if you are okay with 3G speeds. The Straight Talk (an AT&T MVNO) plan affords a great balance between speed and price at $45. If not for the T-Mobile promotional $30 plan, I would have chosen the Straight Talk option since speed is important to me. That said, it is clear that T-Mobile's $30 plan is far and away the best option for anyone who lives in an area with decent coverage and it is what I plan to use for the foreseeable future.
CONCLUSION
While options for the untethered mobile customer may be quite limited, it is possible to come out on top. However, until more and more people start demanding pentaband phones and better rates from top-tier carriers (read: AT&T), such offerings will struggle to catch on. I encourage everyone out there to live out your contracts and start anew with an unsubsidized phone and monthly plan. For nerds like me (and I'm guessing you as well), being able to keep up with the newest hardware is very important and the best way to do so is to severe that unholy connection to the carrier and truly live untethered.
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